Friday, August 9, 2013

Congress Ripping off the Taxpayer

Congress is on five-week recess with no budget in place for FY14 that begins 1 October 2013 and with a debt ceiling stalemate staring them in the face.

Will Republicans really shut down Government over Obamacare is the question that demands an answer? Right now I would say it is 50/50 but after the GOP hears from the hard right Tea Party, it may move to 75/25 to shut down Government. We are in a holding pattern right now to see if the GOP is dumb enough to shut down government.

What would your life be like if you only worked 126 days a year at your job and had 239 days off while getting paid $174,000 a year and if you were the boss you would get paid $223,500 a year. As you can probably guess I am talking about Congress. Here are the days worked and scheduled to be worked per month for 2013:

Five weeks off and how many Town Halls are they holding? One or two the first couple of weeks and then it is vacation time. They were on vacation for 4th of July for a week. Will someone explain why Congress takes the entire week off. It is not the horse and buggy days as they can fly on airplanes and be there in a short time. What's wrong with spending the 4th of July in the Nation's Capitol?

This week marks the last days – four working days to be exact – before the GOP-led House will skip town for five weeks leaving behind a mountain of unfinished business and unresolved issues with pressing deadlines.

The final week before the August recess in a non-election year: Customarily, it’s the occasion for climactic votes on some of the most important matters of the year. This time, it will come and go with little more than a rhetorical torrent about how little’s been done to justify a five-week vacation.

The last week before the August recess is usually full of late nights, last-minute deal-making and achievements to take home to constituents. This week, the House will not even show up until Tuesday evening…

…the House’s marquee moment before adjourning until Sept. 9 will come on Friday with its 40th vote to cripple President Obama’s health care law. House members preparing their vacation plans have been assured that the last vote will be no later than 3 p.m.

On top of the fact this GOP-planned recess shows shocking disregard for the American people and our economy – House Republicans will spend the four working days this week voting on a slew of dead-end message bills with no chance of passing the Senate, including the 40th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and arguing among themselves over threats to shutdown the government if they don’t get their way.

There’s no reason to be threatening to bring down the government. Let’s make this work, let’s get the spending cuts we need. But American people get turned off with the threat of terror politics.

So is the message getting through? Apparently not.

This weekend Tea Party Republican Sen. Mike Lee told FOX News Sunday he takes it as a compliment that members of his own party are criticizing this decision to mobilize the Tea Party contingent against funding the government.

Speaker Boehner, enough is enough. It is time to lead by example – cancel recess and come to the table. Democrats are ready to find solutions for the American people.

Democrats may be willing to find solutions but House/Senate Republicans have to return to their states for marching orders from the Koch entities on how to proceed with obstruction. It is not about what is best for the American people from Republicans but what benefits their wealthy donors like the Koch's. The rest of America is chopped liver to them.

Do the Country a big favor when you cast your vote - Don't Vote Republican!